I'm not sure who this post is aimed at, maybe social conservatives, but I don't think many read my blog. So let's classify this like most posts of this sort: someone shouting into the void and wondering if it hears.

I'm trying to puzzle through opposition to gay marriage. I suppose the root of it is the belief that gay sex is an abomination. Fine, let's run with that and say that we want to stop gay sex. Does blocking gay marriage stop gay sex?

Well let's see, do single people have sex? Yes. Straight and gay, single people have sex. Marriage is an ineffective abstinence-enforcer.

But maybe if we all just firmly believed in the sanctity of marriage and purity and all accepted a moral framework that says no sex until marriage, then it might work. But if we're going to create an imaginary world where everyone believes in the exact same code of behavior, then why not just imagine a world with no gay people, like they do in Iran (true story, there are no gay people in Iran.)

Unfortunately for you, social conservatives, people have sex outside of marriage, so blocking gay marriage does not stop their abominable activity.

Or is the sex a lost cause and the goal is just to not legitimize gay sex? Legitimize it for whom? The gay people don't seem to have much problem with it either way. You won't accept it either way. So who is going to think "oh hey, they're married now, I guess all that gay sex they've been having is okay; maybe I'll have some too"?

Maybe the goal is to stop the spread of gayness? Marriage is a strong argument for adoption, and if gay people start adopting children, they might convert them. I'm not quite sure how that happens. Maybe gay people have gay bedtime stories. It couldn't be some sort of sexual act, since there is no link between homosexuality and pedophilia, unless they're just really good at hiding it, but given that you've already caught one sexual deviation, they probably aren't.

It seems to come down to this: gay marriage must be stopped because gay people might adopt and read theoretical gay stories to their children, thereby causing there to be more gay people, until one day straight people are a minority and are forced to breed just to make more gay babies, all the while being mocked for their sexual deviance. I'd hate to live in a world where straight people are attacked and oppressed for having the wrong kind of sex.

Running with the gay bedtime stories theory of gayness, I must wonder, where did all the gay people come from in the first place? Some studies put the number around 10%. That's a lot of gay bedtime stories. Surely we'd have noticed 10% of children being forced to read gay bedtime stories, especially since those children were all raised by straight parents. Are gay people sneaking into their rooms after the parents leave and reading them two gay stories to cancel out the presumably straight one read by the straight parents? That is a terrifying thought.

Maybe these sneaky gays are responsible for other events as well. Maybe they steal socks out of the dryer and unzip our flies right before we present at meetings. Maybe they are the reason bottles empty so quickly and checks bounce. Clearly gay people are not mere homosexual humans, but are actually poltergeists.

Let me go on the record and say that I am against poltergeist marriage.

I suspect that it's more of a power issue than a gay sex issue. Gays are a minority group that a lot of people, not just social conservatives, would prefer to not have to acknowledge. In the US sodomy is legal if done in private which seems to be common sense but notice there is no such law for heterosexual relations. The broad legal definition of sodomy means that the law is essentially an attempt to force gays to not be "gay" in public. Gay marriage would legitimize gay relationships in a counterbalance of sorts to the enforced privatization of sodomy. As such it would be a disruption to the heteronormative view of public relationships and thus an assault of sorts on heteronormative society.

smakendahed hit it right on the head. Marriage is a religious institution that governments decided to get into. Many folks who object to gay marriage have no problem with civil unions that grant all the same legal rights because that is the government's decision (hopefully driven by the people that the government is supposed so serve).

@smakendahed and Anonymous: Things might be easier if marriage was split into the legal and religious parts, with the legal recognition being extended to everyone and individual churches dealing with the religious part as they wish.

@Nate J: I thought all the anti-sodomy laws were repealed or found unconstitutional, back in the 90s.